


Wishful Thinking

by kimikani



Category: Trace (Manhwa), Trace 1.5 (Manhwa), Trace 2.0 (Manhwa)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 19:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18105158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimikani/pseuds/kimikani
Summary: After Sihyun disappears from his home and workplace, some people can't help wondering what he is doing and what he will do.





	Wishful Thinking

Jungeun liked to take the long way home from school for the scenery. She would let her eyes wander to the rare tree or flower, the tame animals watching her from windows, and the stack of mail building up outside Mr. Han's door.

She once left a note there. She also once checked to see if he had picked it up. He hadn't, and she figured it was because there were just so many packages and envelopes that he didn't spot it. Soon, he'd probably get a fine from the city council or even have his mail tossed out.

Maybe then he'd run outside, yelling and stammering from frustration in the awkward way only he could manage.

Jungeun would be walking to her house in the evening and he would call after her so he could vent. She'd say it was his own fault for being such a mess. He wouldn't be able to disagree.

He'd ask her to show him Jung Kill to life his mood and get some work done. She would have a moment to shine. They would be able to start something new, something good for the world, just like he had always dreamed.

She smiled at the thought and awaited the day, but deep down she knew he was long gone.

-

There was no telling the exact amount of voicemails Heeji left in Sihyun's inbox. She could count all the outward calls in her phone's history, but the numbers didn't match because sometimes she would hang up before the last couple of rings so she'd feel in control.

He might have been hurrying to answer before she clicked end- it was his loss. Soon he would be the one leaving message after message. He was so disorganized that the back and forth could go on for months more, she knew this.

She knew he would answer someday, she knew he was healthy, she knew he was alive. He was just busy, or drunk, or high, or all three. He was with his hacker friend on holiday and he was fighting the stress of abandoning his job, of not checking in with Heeji to say he was OK.

Sometimes she practiced her stern greeting for his return. While sorting the paperwork he would need to fill out, she'd speak her grievances aloud. Oh, wouldn't he regret leaving with no word. He would feel horribly and bow a hundred times. She might pop him on the head with a heavy stack of documents, and then she would help him write in weeks worth of data.

Without meaning to, she imagined it less and less, just as she left voicemails less and less.

-

A foreign smell wafted off of some of the rank and file. Dumpilun paid it no mind. Then the stinking ant-like soldiers began to make a sign with their hands that he did not recognize. It was a bit annoying, but again he let it pass.

And _then_ small groups of them went off somewhere on their own. When he saw them again, they refused to listen to his commands. They threw up their sign and grinned from ear to ear, as if they were proud to be targets of his wrath.

He could easily stomp them out and ignore the tingle their blood sometimes left in his mouth. He could shatter all the bones in their hands when they continued using their useless sign.

He could follow their trail back to whoever was encouraging all this insubordination, the ratty-haired, woozy and sweating, Han-something, an ugly human with an ugly human name... but he couldn't be bothered.

-

An eye for an eye.

If only Han Sihyun could trade a hundred strangers' eyes for the ones of the friend he'd lost. He would give every piece- bleeding, still warm, or newly cold- of anyone he cut down if it meant that he would see them again.

He would give his own soul if it meant that the image of that one person would stop fading away.

Looking at them was a gift he hadn't appreciated. He'd had no time. He'd had no idea. Their smile shook him and he knew that he'd have done anything to see it, yet he did not protect them.

Now he was followed by many who remind him of the one. Maybe it was he who chose to follow them, tightly clustering them all so he would not search empty space for who he'd lost.

He did not love the many the same as he loved the one. He did not love the one the same as he once did.

He could not tell if it would do them more justice to mourn or to move on. He could not tell if it mattered to say that with them he lost a part of himself. He could not tell if his choices had eased the pain.

He could stop his hunting for vengeance, his gathering of servants, but he did not want to. He had nothing to gain and nothing to lose.

He would give his life for theirs, but he couldn't.

He could take hundreds more lives for theirs, and he would.


End file.
